Search: Afghanistan police deaths
Military figures have said that security problems were rife in the Afghan police in the wake of a bloody attack by one "rogue" recruit which claimed five lives.
Warrant Officer First Class Darren Chant, Sergeant Matthew Telford and Guardsman James Major from the Grenadier Guards died alongside Acting Corporal Steven Boote and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith from the Royal Military Police.
Captain Doug Beattie, who mentored Afghan soldiers and police officers in Helmand in 2006/7, told The Guardian: "Whether people will admit this openly or not, it is a fact that the Afghan police have been infiltrated at every level by the insurgency."
An unnamed soldier wrote a piece for the Independent saying he was "not surprised" by the attack.
He said of the police recruits: "Most of them were corrupt and took drugs, particularly opium. The lads would go into police stations at night and they would be stoned; sometimes they would fire indiscriminately at nothing.
"There were no security checks - they were literally allowed to come into the compound and we had to rely on the local chief of police, who recruited them. We kept a close eye on them because we didn't know or trust them - it was for our own security."
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But former soldier and Chairman of the Commons Sub-Committee on Counter-Terrorism Patrick Mercer said the training programme must continue.
He told the Press Association: "If you risk using indigenous forces and you risk sending small numbers of troops to isolated areas to work with them these sorts of things are going to happen. It's relatively unusual but this particular strike by the enemy has been particularly bloody.
"I just don't see what the alternative is. We could as an alliance down tools, but that would made a complete mockery of the strategy in Afghanistan. We have to train up forces and police to take the place of the Western forces that are there now. It's the only game in town. This is a tragedy but it is isolated."
Writing in the Independent, former commander of the Royal Marines Major General Julian Thompson said that it was "very worrying" that the murders were carried out by an Afghan policeman. But he said: "The plain fact is that the only viable exit strategy involves preparing the Afghan security forces for taking over from us. We should only be there until this is done and then we must leave the Afghan forces to look after security in their own country."
